1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of semiconductor fabrication, and more specifically, to near-field photo-lithography.
2. Description of Related Art
Lithography is a technique to print the intricate patterns that define integrated circuits onto a semiconductor wafer. Modern semiconductor fabrication technologies often require feature size of circuit elements at an ultra high resolution range at the nanometer (nm) level.
With lithography using far field optics, the smallest feature that can be patterned is just under half of the wavelength of the light being used. Current 193 nm lithography cannot produce features below 80 nm. Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography uses EUV radiation with a wavelength of 10 to 14 nanometer (nm). However, EUV lithographic equipment and process are expensive. Nanoscale light emitting diodes (nanoLEDs) have been proposed for assembling integrated photonic devices or electronic logic gates but not in near-field photo-lithography. Techniques using plasmon printing and evanescent fields have been suggested as a new approach for near-field lithography. None of these techniques provides flexibility, programmability, and controllability in patterning nanometer-sized features in a resist.